Apple Commits to Being 100% Carbon Neutral Across Entire Supply Chain By 2030

[bluecoast]

The commitment to having a carbon neutral supply chain is great. Excited as to how they they will do this.

Agree with others that this will need to translate into making products that are more durable and long lasting and with easy to replace batteries (AirPods) and other parts. And less plastic.

I imagine it’ll be a year or two before we see this all translated into products, but looking forward to it.

 

[Vjosullivan]

So does this mean no more cargo jets flying the latest iPhones over from China when they are released?

Apple doesn’t deliver iPhones, freight and delivery companies do that. Therefore, not Apple’s responsibility. ?

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

I was fascinated on my trip to Australia and New Zealand: there are whole cities that are larger than my hometown, that are completely 'carbon neutral'. People here moan and complain that they will have to give up too much to be neutral, but those cities looked like they were rocking stuff at 110%. Wellington New Zealand. Melbourne Australia. Auckland New Zealand is mostly. On and on...

If it wasn't for entrenched profit centers, we could be there too. (Wasn't the Saturn car plant supposedly mostly self sustaining, neutral? Toyota is supposedly there in some planes. Subaru too.

Stop focusing on corporations, and start focusing on CITIES. It IS possible...

Fear of change is keeping America from doing the right thing; saving our future. With the effects of the shutdown proving that the environment can recover, why not do it for the future. Otherwise people are just saying we, humanity, has no future.

Another Pinky soap box soliloquy. *shrug*
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Apple doesn’t deliver iPhones, freight and delivery companies do that. Therefore, not Apple’s responsibility. 😉

UPS had a thing where shippers could pay for a 'carbon offset'. I usually did it on most things I shipped. I think it went to plant trees, or something. I thought about getting a 'cargo bike', but this is a bad time to think about getting any kind of bike. There just aren't any out there to be had. *shrug*

 

[ptklenk]

Brought to you by.... well, you.

Exactly . . . so they are representing that there is NO reliance on the grid in the event of "natural" failure? That is a true bucket of BS!

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Exactly . . . so they are representing that there is NO reliance on the grid in the event of "natural" failure? That is a true bucket of BS!

Look up 'Carrington Event'. It could happen at any time. It will be 'life changing'. And that's just a solar mass ejection (A CME, technically) A massive earthquake, the supermassive volcano in Yellowstone, a nuclear 'accident'.

But life is uncertain. Nothing says we, humans, will survive for 10 more years. 20. 50. 20 minutes. 5 seconds. But burning down the house, like we won't last another 12 hours, sure seems like a way to make that happen.

Imagine a Carrington Event. Satellites failing, power lines burning out. Transformers exploding. Whole regions without electricity. For WEEKS/MONTHS. Imagine the entire Yellowstone Park, blown into the sky. Millions of tons of dirt, magma, ash, thrown into the thermosphere. Years of lowering temperatures in the northern hemisphere. Yeah. We be screwed.

 

[AlexGraphicD]

What a waste of time and resources. For decades now the attention is diverged away from the real and actual danger that the environment is facing which is the enormous amount of pollution and toxic waste that fills our landfills and oceans. Instead they are making campaigns about the "carbon emissions" which is not anywhere near as a threat compared to the pollution of the earth and oceans. What a joke.

 

[quatermass]

Why? Carbon isn't a problem.

Indeed. Why cant anyone say 'carbon dioxide'? Is it too sciency? Too long? Too elitist? Too difficult to understand? If that's the case, then you need to step away from something as complex as climate science.
How complex is climate science? The most difficult thing to model is a turbulent fluid. The maths is incredible, and it's actually impossible to make any solid predictions. Consider: the two major components of the climate are the atmosphere and the oceans - both turbulent fluids. Try and build a computer model that can accurately describe that, let alone make predictions... the best of luck to you! That might explain why all - as in 100% - of predictions made by climate models have failed. And don't forget TSI (Total Solar Irradiance). That's the amount of energy the surface of the Earth receives from the Sun. Until a couple of years ago, no accurate figure for this absolutely fundamental quantity was available, so guess what was fed into the models? And guess what the result was? Clouds... another absolutely fundamental property of the atmosphere, and yet no computer model can come close to modelling them with any fidelity. It's just too complex and nonlinear.

But why should we be concerned about a few wonky computer models? Because the predictions from them is what is being used to drive environmental, energy and taxation policies across the world - and these will directly influence you, so you should be concerned.

But, if you still want to lower your carbon footprint, consume less diamonds, soot and graphite. Easy.

 

[System Of A Down]

GUYS, this is a good thing. Let Apple do something good for once without being scrutinized. I already see people downplaying this, but every step counts.

 

[Jim_MAY]

Brought to you by.... well, you.

”By 2030 Apple be removing the power cords from all its device’s and replacing them with solar panels.”

 

[CausticSoda]

I was fascinated on my trip to Australia and New Zealand: there are whole cities that are larger than my hometown, that are completely 'carbon neutral'. People here moan and complain that they will have to give up too much to be neutral, but those cities looked like they were rocking stuff at 110%. Wellington New Zealand. Melbourne Australia. Auckland New Zealand is mostly. On and on...

Fear of change is keeping America from doing the right thing; saving our future.

Much of Australia's wealth is from exporting raw materials to China for mass-volume, dirty, high-polluting industry with a global, negative environmental impact. Do you think these "carbon neutral" cities would exist without that? It is not a sustainable concept. You will always find the damage being caused further down the line in one way or another. Let's not kid ourselves.

As for "fear of change" you mean fear of the cost and impact on the economy.
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Oh no, really? Do they replace it or “AppleCare it”? I just bought a pair of AirPods Pro, which I’m enjoying incredibly a lot, but I do have to put them once a day for a few minutes on the charging case. It usually serves as a break pause for the midday, but if it gets considerably worse, not cool.

I am afraid it does get a lot worse, yes. To be fair to Apple, it is hardly a surprise given their size. However, it is also hard to believe that it would not have been easy enough to make the batteries user-replaceable. The fact they are not, along with frequent upgrades, means many probably treat them as disposable.

And as CO2 only comprises 0.0407% of the dry atmosphere, we may safely assume the effect would be minimal.

This is a classic schoolboy error. Yes, CO2 is a small percentage of the atmosphere, but it is roughly the quantity that the planet is equipped to deal with. Change this to 0.08 % and it is still really small, so what's the problem? The problem is that would be 200 % of what the planet is equipped to deal with. It is the percentage change that matters, not the absolute percentage.

 

[pray2crom]

So apple is saying china is going all green? LOL

 

[fmillion]

I am afraid it does get a lot worse, yes. To be fair to Apple, it is hardly a surprise given their size. However, it is also hard to believe that it would not have been easy enough to make the batteries user-replaceable. The fact they are not, along with frequent upgrades, means many probably treat them as disposable.

I'm not even against the idea that you have to unscrew the phone to replace the battery, or even that you might have to replace the waterproof seal. But their shenanigans with throwing up warnings even for genuine Apple batteries that were swapped in from another phone, their constant whining about independent repair, and their grandstanding and pandering with "iPhone disassembly robots" leads me to believe this is just more of the same. Recycling does not make things CO2 neutral because recycling itself requires energy. One of the best ways to reduce carbon emissions is to reduce energy usage, both in manufacturing and in recycling. In other words, make products that last longer.

You know what would be fun? Imagine if a climate change expert crunched the numbers and made a presentation for the Apple board of directors. Apple could produce a phone that would last for at least 5 years, could be easily repaired or even upgraded, and would actually make them carbon negative (reduction in manufacturing AND recycling). Users would be thrilled and would buy it in droves. However... to do this, Apple shareholders would have to be willing to slightly lower their year-over-year profit margins and thus their dividends. Not by much, even a few percent, but you know... Seriously, I wanna see this happen so I can listen to the crickets. Basically, people talk about climate change all day, but as soon as it starts to cost more money, most people will get off the boat. I would even imagine this is why Apple is against right-to-repair and why they are locked in this "must release a phone every year" cycle - it makes the most money even if it's far from the most environmentally friendly.

 

[Risco]

That’s all well and good. But what they really need to do is make every product easily repairable. Far to much electronic waste in the world.

 

[-DMN-]

Make ALL batteries user replaceable Tim! The battery in the AirPods are dead After 2-3 years. What a waste.

Using non-replacble batteries shows that this is just a PR move and a considers profits over agenda

 

[recoil80]

Make ALL batteries user replaceable Tim! The battery in the AirPods are dead After 2-3 years. What a waste.

AirPods are too small to have a convenient way to replace the battery. But they have to address the issue anyway, they could give you something back if you take your old AirPods to the AS to buy a new pair, and should recycle as much as they can. They may even sell refurbished AirPods after they replace the batteries, it would be great.
If they don't offer the customer a reward to take old technology back to the manufacturer, people just leave stuff in a drawer or in a box in the attic and eventually they end up in the landfill. That's a waste and if they call themselves a green company they should do something

 

[robbieduncan]

AirPods are too small to have a convenient way to replace the battery. But they have to address the issue anyway, they could give you something back if you take your old AirPods to the AS to buy a new pair, and should recycle as much as they can. They may even sell refurbished AirPods after they replace the batteries, it would be great.
If they don't offer the customer a reward to take old technology back to the manufacturer, people just leave stuff in a drawer or in a box in the attic and eventually they end up in the landfill. That's a waste and if they call themselves a green company they should do something

They need a new robot: AirPod Disassembly And Maintenance or ADAM

 

[quatermass]

This is a classic schoolboy error. Yes, CO2 is a small percentage of the atmosphere, but it is roughly the quantity that the planet is equipped to deal with. Change this to 0.08 % and it is still really small, so what's the problem? The problem is that would be 200 % of what the planet is equipped to deal with. It is the percentage change that matters, not the absolute percentage.

That's only true if you accept the figures given for the forcing effect of CO2, which appear to be way, way off. As for 'equipped to deal with' - no-one has any idea of what that even means.

 

[ericwn]

I suppose this suggest that this is what Apple will use today to be in the news at 30 days since WWDC instead of IMacs?

There’s always something negative to explore.

It'd be nice if Apple was choosing to lead instead of follow.

Microsoft already committed to being carbon negative by 2030 and to have completely undone all of their lifetime carbon emissions by 2050.

The trauma from using Windows lasts for a lifetime though.

How about Apple commits to being 100% bug free software. Tim?

100% big free software? Probably only available on an abacus.

It is hard to believe that Apple is truly carbon-neutral when they can't manage to be environmentally friendly. It would be nice to have replaceable rechargable batteries. Or easily repairable products that don't require copious amounts of glue (AirPods).

Because repairable in ear headphones are not common there is no user expectation in that regard either. In fact the service path for most other brands will be much more time consuming and at least as unfriendly to the environment.

I agree environment is more important, but honestly the tech company is supposed to be a tech company first priority. Leave carbon goals to governments. Trust me. California will mandate that and more for them. They should focus on their mission and less on quasi-statehood.

You might have missed the values Apple gave itself. Caring about the environment in all possible regards of life is not just the government’s job either.

 

[DeputyFife]

You might have missed the values Apple gave itself. Caring about the environment in all possible regards of life is not just the government’s job either.

Didn’t miss any values. I agree environment is important (I already said that part...) I just have a more traditional perspective that business is there to do business. If you’re a tech company, build tech. If you want to use recycled materials (which Apple does) and use all green energy that’s fine. This carbon neutral stuff though is sheer politics...expensive politics. Apple can’t achieve carbon neutrality in truth, you can’t have suppliers mining sapphire, copper, iron ore, etc and production facilities creating aluminum and titanium etc. And expect to be truly carbon neutral. That’s my point. Governments are there for a reason. Business will have to comply. Until governments are on board most company achievements on environment are hollow anyway (they are too small a slice of the pie, and aren’t driving the problem).

 

[CausticSoda]

That's only true if you accept the figures given for the forcing effect of CO2, which appear to be way, way off. As for 'equipped to deal with' - no-one has any idea of what that even means.

Absolute twaddle - both points. “Equipped to deal with” very obviously means natural processes can remove the CO2 avoiding an excess (giving rise to global warming)... Obviously! Nice try at deflection from your original error.

 

[Vjosullivan]

Because repairable in ear headphones are not common there is no user expectation in that regard either. In fact the service path for most other brands will be much more time consuming and at least as unfriendly to the environment.

This isn't about "other brands". It's about Apple. What "other brands" do is irrelevant, partially if Apple is to be regarded as a leader than a follower of trends.

 

[ericwn]

This isn't about "other brands". It's about Apple. What "other brands" do is irrelevant, partially if Apple is to be regarded as a leader than a follower of trends.

This is also about having realistic expectations. As this is nothing common in the market this may give us some hints.
Apple has lots of batteries that are no longer user replaceable. To start at the most tiny one may not be the wisest cause of action.

Besides with a standard AirPods set you’d also need other service options like a way to clean the things out from sweat and ear wax.

 

[quatermass]

Absolute twaddle - both points. “Equipped to deal with” very obviously means natural processes can remove the CO2 avoiding an excess (giving rise to global warming)... Obviously! Nice try at deflection from your original error.

Sorry for the late reply - I didn't see the notification of your last comment.
"Equipped to deal with" makes it sound like the Earth is some sort of machine, designed to run to some specification, and Bad Humans have pushed it out of spec and broken it, as it's not "equipped to deal with" this level of CO2.
Please have a look at the attached chart, showing the variations in both temperature and CO2 levels over geological time. Sources for the data are given in the chart.
You'll notice a couple of things.
1: The CO2 level has varied over time, and has generally been much higher than we see today. Given that life on Earth survived those changes, and indeed flourished at much higher values than today, how does this show what the Earth is or isn't "equipped to deal with"? Can you point to a time that the Earth was obviously not equipped to deal with a certain level of CO2?
2: The variation in CO2 levels, and the variation in temperature bear little relation to each other. Note 439my - CO2 up, temperature down. 409my - the opposite; CO2 down, temp up. 150my - CO2 up, temp down. And so on - see how the temperature does not track the CO2 level in the perfectly linear way that todays climate 'models' would have you believe. This supports the idea that it is, in fact, the absolute percentage, and not the percentage change, that is important.

So, once we look at the data, and the historical record, we can see that challenging the notion of what the planet is equipped to deal with is quite valid, and not in error.

That human beings and their civilisations have evolved during a time of a relatively stable climate, have become accustomed to it and would quite like it to stay that way is another matter. Unfortunately, the climate does not care what a certain group of primates do or do not like. It's possible that other factors are at work, such as the Sun, over which we have no control. Factors that climate models either neglect, or get wrong - and yet they are being used to drive economic, energy and environmental policies.

 

[ptklenk]

If your willing to let Apple have a pass on surface data then I have an island to sell.